Former salt farm worker awarded state compensation for forced labor

A Seoul court ordered the government on Friday to pay some 37 million won ($32,800) in compensation to a victim with intellectual disabilities for being forced to toil at a salt farm and suffering physical abuse by his employer.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of the defendant identified only by his last name Park.

In 2014, Park tried to run away from a salt field in Shinan, some 400 km south of Seoul, after long being exploited for labor and repeatedly physically assaulted by his employer. He went to a police station for help, but an officer contacted the employer and made him go back to his workplace.

This file photo dated Sept. 4 shows workers harvesting salt at an agricultural technology center in North Chungcheong Province (Yonhap)
The court acknowledged the state should be held accountable for his suffering. 

"As a result, Park had to return to the salt field, from which we can assume he must have felt very confused and extremely frustrated," the court said.

The court added that the payout is thus for his psychological trauma long suffered from a decade of forced labor with no fair treatment.

But the court denied state responsibility for seven other co-defendants who lodged the same suit together with Park against the government in 2015, citing a lack of evidence.

Revelations about a group of mentally disabled people who were treated as slaves to toil at salt farms with little pay sent shock waves through the country and stirred up huge public uproar. A series of similar incidents have since been exposed by the media or reports from victims. (Yonhap)

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